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Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Australian Grand Prix: Melbourne Round-Up

A great weekend for Kimi Raikkonen but mixed results for my Australian Grand Prix formula 1 tips...

Last season my post-qualifying tips generally out-performed my pre-qualifying tips, but at the Australian Grand Prix it was a reversal of form as my pre-qualifying tips had the upper hand and just sneaked a slight profit...

Pre-Qualifying Tips:

To Win Outright:20 points on Jenson Button at 6.0 - LOSS
From the first practise session it was already looking obvious that McLaren were way off the pace, so Jenson never had a chance of continuing his impressive run of victories at Albert Park.

Podium Finish:30 points on Fernando Alonso at 2.0 - WIN 60 points
Last year Fernando was by far the most attractive bet in the Podium Finish market and he started 2013 in similar form with an impressive second place.Top Six Finish:30 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 1.5 - WIN 45 points
I clearly underestimated the potential of the Lotus in Kimi's hands because before first practise Kimi was available at 9.0 for the victory. Although this was a winning bet therefore it also goes down as a missed opportunity for an even bigger return.

To Finish In The Points (Top Ten Finish):20 points on Daniel Ricciardo at 3.0 - LOSS
Exhaust problems brought an end to Ricciardo's race on lap 39 of the Australian Grand Prix.

Making an overall return of 105 points and therefore an overall profit of 5 points.

Post-Qualifying Tips:

To Win Outright:20 points on Sebastian Vettel at 1.67 - LOSS
Sebastian Vettel looked dominant in practise and qualifying but the Australian Grand Prix proved that formula 1 can be an unpredictable sport. Lotus's better tyre management allowed Raikkonen to run a two stop strategy which, in Kimi'swords, made his victory an easy one. An excellent outlap by Alonso after his second pitstop also allowed him to move up a spot and relegated Vettel to 3rd spot on the podium.

Podium Finish:20 points on Mark Webber at 1.73 - LOSS
Right from the start Webber had an unfortunate race as he was hit by telemetry issues on the grid due to problems with his ECU.

Top Six Finish:10 points on Nico Rosberg at 1.73 - LOSS
Nico was in the mix for a top six finish until his retirement on lap 26 brought an end to his weekend.

To Finish In The Points (Top Ten Finish):10 points on Paul Di Resta at 1.91- WIN 19 points
Paul Di Resta finished a respectable 8th and felt he could have got 7th if not for team orders towards the end of the race.

Button's Finishing Position:30 points on Jenson Button to finish 7th or worse at 1.67 - WIN 50 points
Jenson qualified three seconds behind Sebastian Vettel and McLaren were clearly way off the pace, so of all my tips this was the one I was most confident of. So it proved to be as Jenson did well to bring his car home in the lower end of the points scoring positions in 9th place.

Lap One Leader:10 points on Mark Webber at 7.0 - LOSS
Problems with his car's ECU contributed to Mark making a bad start so by the first corner it was clear that this was going to be a losing bet.

Making an overall return of 69 points and therefore an overall loss of 31 points.

My pre-qualifying tips for the Australian Grand Prix therefore had the upper hand and as this is the first race of the season the head to head totals are:

Pre-qualifying tips - 1
Post-qualifying tips - 0

As already mentioned it's a lot trickier to make predictions at the start of the season so treat my tips with caution, but I'll be making my pre-qualifying tips for the Malaysian Grand Prix tomorrow.